De Assis' The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas is a lesser known classic of South American literature. Written in short poetic chapters, the novel tells the life story of Bras Cubas, a wealthy Brazilian of the 19th century. This book is witty, playful, and strange, and its first
twist is that the narrator, Cubas, is dead, "not exactly a writer who is dead but a dead man who is a writer."
